a Study of Slow Mo.

Young Sid 'YOU' music video.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to everyone from goodLife. We thought on this day where we celebrate & value our family & whanau, it was a good time to release & recall that not everyone has warmth & love in their homes. This is a crucial song, one of Sid's best & a video I'm very proud of & in many ways is a sibling to the video I made for Smashproof, 'Brother' two years ago. It premiered two days ago exclusive to the NZ Herald. Catch his words & hava safe holiday, which is all that kiwi kids can wish for.

director :           Chris Graham @ goodLife.
producer:         Claire Campbell
dop's:                Brett Nichols, Andrew Stroud
cam asst:         Sophie Musgrove
lighting:            Richie Pause Rich
editor:               Nathan Pickles
colourist:          Dave McClaren
flame VFX:       Andy Dill
post pro:           Amy Molloy, Steen Bech

Thanks for the support from : goodLife, Oktobor, Maori TV, Fat Productions & Stich, 
Haley & the cast of youth from Clover Park School, Otara.   

the Beaches & Hose summer tour

Sneak Peak at Scarlet [mini RED camera]

Ive been shooting most of the last two years on the RED camera, even though my true love is still 35mm. But for a high ratio shooting, like a lot of the documentary & doco style Ads I'm shooting have been, the Red is a great tool. the Scarlet is the anticipated smaller, more agile handheld Red cam. Still unreleased, but this is the 1st peek at her.

Stills from the Young Sid vid shoot for YOU.

Second night in a row that we are editing through the long morning hours, a reflection of just how busy December is. YOU has been an unconventional formation of a video, since it started when I shot Sid & Sicc at their house in Otara back in May for the 'Sounds of Hope' about NZ's child abuse pandemic. [You can see scenes from our Doco here.] Then Kirk Harding called asking if I could make a music video out of the Doco footage we shot of Sid's acapella of the song YOU. The sync drifted some but we figured we could. So we shot Deach the week after. Then I got busy in Ad land, MTC hit up NZ on fAir for funding, I was down with knee surgery & 6 months later in November we shot the other half of the video.

Hayley & the good fam at Clover Park school in Otara helped us find a dozen great kids to memorise the song over a few days, then we returned to shoot these kids deliver Sid's crucial message. As you can see, a wide range of talented & gorgeous youth learnt the song for the shoot, although most knew it already as Sid being a local hero having attended this school as a kid. He was in NYC working on the new album when we shot this, but Tyree, Juse & Aaron repped. It was a great day in the SA sun, thanks to a generous & skilled crew,   the school, Twice as Nice for a emotive beat & Sid for a deep track, silver scroll worthy. Its also my first music video in nearly two years since I made this one. No doubt, after we complete post, MTC will announce when they will drop this video next week sometime for You.

David Dallas. Coming to America to Duck Down.

                        http://www.prefixmag.com/media/david-dallas/coming-to-america-part-1-video/46861/

Kush. Dre's 1st Vid in a Decade. [Int Vid of the Month]

Alice in WonderingLand. [3 Remixed MashUps]

English 50cent : In the Club [translated into theQueen's English]

English 50 Cent - In Da Club from english 50cent on Vimeo.

new Maori music.

Local Vid of the Month : MoveTheCrowd. [Vince McMillan]

Damn.  which label better than this?     now thats a local roster.

Int Vid of the Month : Arcade Fire 'the Suburbs' [Spike Jonze]

the Sopranos. uncensored. [everybody needs a Montage]

Every swear word, from every Episode, ever.

TED Prize Winner : JR : photographer.

"JR is an anonymous photographer and artist and the 2011 TED Prize winner. In his work, JR embeds into neighborhoods, favelas and villages around the world, photographing the people who live there and learning their stories — and then pasting his striking images onto massive local canvases: buildings, buses, roads and bridges. His latest global art project is called "Women Are Heroes."

JR embodies the many characteristics TED looks for in a winner: creativity, vision, leadership, and persuasion. His work is not just stunning. It is innovative, using collaborative storytelling techniques, which move the art of photography in a new and exciting direction. His work is about unlocking the power of possibility, revealing our true selves to those who live around us and then sharing those stories far and wide.

JR attracts loyalty and respect from both his subjects, his friends and volunteers who help him mount all of his exhibitions. The scale of his work is huge, not just the size of each individual portrait, or the amount of space each exhibition covers in one place, but the number of communities and countries each project involves."

Bliss N Eso. [Oz Music Vid. Graf by Askew & Deus.]

Double Rainbow. I want what he's having.

where goodIdeas come from.

goodShot of the month.

Ruatorea : the Nati Awards on the Coast.

Last Week I was invited to be a guest speaker at the annual 'Nati Awards', where all of the East Coast colleges & all schools compete in a variety of media studies. the other guest speakers were the all mighty all girl hiphop crew 'ReQuest', who took out the World Champs this year in Las Vegas. If you havent seen their routine & win over there, watch it here. It was great to meet those girls & their manager Brett, as well as all the warm folk from the Coast who looked after me during my two days there. Especially Paora & Daryl who I stayed with & then sent me back on the plane with four Cray's as carry on. Kia Ora to Jasmine, Leanne, Taryne, Tai & all for looking after me. I had a blast & one day I'll be back with the whole whanau. Tu Meke.

The next morena, I looked around the smaller towns & through Tikitiki to pay respect to Wi Kuki Kaa's grave, which is yet to be unveiled next to his whanau. Then back to Gissy through Tolaga.

DubFX : the Looping Aussie Busker.

                          

Homebrew : I wish you weren't a Lesbian. [Ode to Anika Moa]

Radiolab : Moments & Words in Life.

Eye have been researching for a project recently & found this deeply inspiring. Both editorially & photographically. In shot association & audio mixing associating. Moments in time, snippets of Life. Montage of things that happen to us daily & also sometimes, only once in our lifetimes. Makes you think. thanks to my goodFriend StJohnSmith for the thought. You can see more videos & inspiration from the 'everynone' project : Hear.

Q&A about Homebrew & the Vidyo by the Corner.

The NZ music Blog 'the Corner' interviewed me a few days ago about whatsup with Homebrew, myself & the incoming musicVid for 'Under the Shade'.  Peep the full interview Hear. 

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The Home Brew Crew tour kicked off yesterday and continues throughout the month and ends with a one-off gig on Great Barrier Island in October. We’ll be posting our interview with them next week but in the meantime check out our interview with  Chris Graham to find out the latest on his collaboration with the group including a Home Brew TV show, and when we’ll finally see the video for Underneath The Shade.Grab the Crew’s EP’s over here and check out the IV below.

1. Where did you first hear of Home Brew? What attracted you to them in the first place?

I initially heard a buzz about the Brew early last year when my mate Edmund Skillary, [aka MikkiD] an ex-pat DJ based in Dublin, emailed me the Friday song & told me about the classic, conceptual Last Week EP. Ironic, considering I live in Balmoral & the Homebrew were mostly living in Sandringham at the time. Only a stones throw of an EP away, but it got sent to me via Dublin. So I hunted & gathered all their EPs & drank it all up. I guess my initial attraction musically, was Tom Scotch’s accent, so quintessentially kiwi, so Hori, that I assumed he was Maori, only to later meet a skinny jewish dude & his Niuen brothers. But even on that first listen to Friday, it was the accent, the storytelling, the humour, the Hazbeats, the Lui character voices, the memorable hooks. I was amped that NZ had finally birthed our own unique version of the Pharcyde.

2. I read on your blog that it was you who personally contacted the band about directing a video for them. Have you ever done that with an artist before?

Not for ages. When I moved back to Welly in 99′ from living 7 years in NYC, I came back with hunger to make local music videos & make my mark. So I approached all the local bands I wanted to make videos for; Trinity Roots, Rhombus, P-Money, & Scribe.. After I made a handful, I started getting approached by other artists who liked those videos; Bic Runga, Dei Hamo, Kapisi, Smashproof. So I guess it had been a minute since I approached a band. Once I marinated on the various Homebrew EP’s & heard that they were as local, I got Tom’s phone, called him up & expressed my fan-dom & invited myself over for brews. That webisode where they approach me to make a video is a reversed myth.

3. The Radio Promo and Drinking Tour videos you made for the benefit show were a huge success. Who’s idea was it to do them?

I guess it was a collab Idea one day down at Plaything Gallery. Basically, they didn’t get NZ on Air funding for the ‘Under the Shade’ song that we agreed was going to be their first Video that I’d make, so we came up with the Idea of throwing a Music Video fund raising party. The Webisode ideas came from us wanting to raise awareness of the party & get heads through the door to raise as big a budget as we could.. It worked, as much like a classic Homebrew vs. Goliath on Air story, missing out on standard 5K funding, meant we just did it ourselves & raised 14K instead.

4. What other ideas have you been exploring with the band? When I interviewed them, they mentioned that you wanted to make a sitcom about them. Is this true?

It tis true. I haven’t been telling anyone about that, but after making those Webisodes & recognising their potential for comedy, I pitched the Idea of a TV show to them, not a sitcom, but more like a local version of ‘How to Make It in America’ [HBO] & ‘Entourage’. Although they were keen enough for months of development & writing on it, its a shame as they recently decided they don’t have the balls to do it after all.

5. You’ve been busy with a whole bunch of other projects but when can we expect to see the video for Underneath The Shade?

Late Octobor. Coming to a YouTube near you. Im amped for it, its a huge, ambitious & metaphorical concept for an important song with meaning.

a rare day when I wished I still lived in LA. [Rock the Bells LineUp]